Issa staff charity picks scrutinized

A charitable group founded by California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, one of the richest members of Congress, has given tens of thousands of dollars to other organizations on behalf of his congressional staff and his own House committee, according to public records.

These donations do not appear to violate ethics or tax rules, several legal experts said, but they are the clearest example to date of Issa intermingling his vast personal riches with his congressional duties, a practice that has caused public relations and ethics problems for the controversial California Republican.

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Here’s how it works: Staffers pitch Issa each holiday season, suggesting a charity worthy of a donation from the Issa Family Foundation. Issa then decides who gets a check, and the staffer is “recognized for their recommendation to the charity that receives the contribution,” said Frederick Hill, an Issa spokesman. The aides do not get a tax write-off or any other benefit, the office says.

This practice is unusual, if not completely foreign, to the thousands of other Capitol Hill staffers who work long hours for little pay. It’s a practice more in line with corporate America, where business leaders cut checks for charities at the end of the year, than with congressional norm.

In 2009 — the most recent year for which tax records are available — the Issa Family Foundation donated $2,000 to the Boys & Girls Club of Vista, Calif., on behalf of Kurt Bardella, a trusted Issa aide. Bardella was publicly fired by Issa earlier this year but then rehired five months later as an Oversight and Government Reform Committee staffer.

The charity, which lists the congressman and his wife as CEO and chief financial officer, respectively, also gave $2,000 to the Westminster Historical Society on behalf of Dale Neugebauer, Issa’s chief of staff.

The largest individual gift that the Issa foundation gave on behalf of one of his aides appears to be $4,000 donated in the name of district director Phil Paule to the Salvation Army.

And the foundation gave out four charitable donations totaling $5,000 in the name of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs. After Issa became the top Republican on the committee in 2009, “instead of seeking individual recommendations from Republican committee staff, he sought collective recommendations from the staff, and his family’s foundation made donations based upon them,” Hill said.

All together, the Issa charity handed out at least $42,000 in donations during 2009 on behalf of individual congressional staffers and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, tax records show.

At least 18 staffers won donations in their name for prized charities.

Issa aides say similar donations were made by the foundation in other years, but the foundation’s filings with the Internal Revenue Service do not provide similar details for the 1999-2008 period.

Issa, who made his fortune in the car alarm business, set up his family charity in 1999, documents on file with the IRS show. The Issa Family Foundation has more than $28 million in assets and handed out roughly $630,000 in 2009, according to the foundation’s most recent filing with the IRS. Issa himself is worth at least $220 million, according to annual financial disclosure reports, which makes him one of the wealthiest lawmakers on the Hill.

Hill, who secured $2,000 from the foundation in 2009 for a scholarship fund at Lynchburg College, said the “Issas have seen this effort as an opportunity — during the holiday season — to introduce staff to the importance of philanthropy.”

More broadly, there are strict limits on the gifts that members and staff may receive. Honorarium payments from charities are not allowed. Indirect benefits received from work on Capitol Hill are scrutinized. Hill said Issa’s staff vetted the donations with the House Ethics Committee and outside attorneys.

Yet these gifts appear to be unprecedented, and several ethics experts could not recall any similar actions by any other lawmaker, current or past.